Mission Creep


In his Presidential readings, Dr. Zebra occasionally encounters fascinating non-medical facts that cry to be known.

Presenting these facts is mission creep for this website.

Well, so be it. Facilis descensus Averni.


Chester A. Arthur John F. Kennedy James Monroe Abraham Lincoln George W. Bush
"In the course of my preparation for this second volume, I have examined in manuscript about forty thousand documents.... Week by week and year by year the notes pile up, and there is born an insidious urge to justify or parade this labor by giving a place in the sun to too much of the resultant memoranda. Thus research may partake of the nature of vanity, and a book reflect a picture of the author's progressive grubbings in such strong light as to cast a shadow on the concerns of the other individual whose name appears on the title page."
--   Marquis James 5a
Cited Sources
  1. Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh (ed). Burke's Presidential Families of the United States of America. 2nd ed. London: Burke's Peerage Limited, 1981.
    a  p.359

    Comment: Maps -- in great detail -- the ancestors and descendants of American presidents through Ronald Reagan. They would have had an exhausting time with President Obama's family tree! MORE

  2. Dallek, Robert. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963. Boston: Little, Brown, 2003.
    a  p.693
  3. Sullivan, George. Mr. President: A Book of U.S. Presidents. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2005.
    a  pp.34-35
  4. Gary, Ralph. Following Lincoln's Footsteps. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2001.
    a  pp.238, 261
  5. James, Marquis. The Life of Andrew Jackson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1938).
    a  p.910 - James twice won the Pulitzer Prize for biography